


Small December

by giraffles



Series: FMA Rarepair Week 2016 [6]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003)
Genre: Angst, F/F, FMA Rarepair Week, Fluff, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-10
Updated: 2016-09-10
Packaged: 2018-08-14 03:09:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7996375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/giraffles/pseuds/giraffles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>We try to push the love away</i>
  <br/>
  <i>But it’ll haunt us ‘til our dying day</i>
</p><p> </p><p>Seasons change and so do they.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Small December

It’s early summer when she comes to Resembol. The south is warm, though not the same as her desert home, which is now a place desecrated beyond recognition. She doesn’t know if she’ll ever have the strength to return there. Thinking about it maker her bitter and despondent. So she doesn’t think about it. Rose focuses on the present, on the baby mewling in her arms, the quiet boy she’s taking home, and the broken one they’re helping to carry there.

It’s not just her at first. Alphonse’s former teachers accompany them back, along with the two startled brothers she’d found waiting at the top of the stairs, by the secret exit so few knew about. She’ll never forget the one’s disappointed look when it was just her and a smattering of children who appeared from the depths. He was waiting for Edward.

He’ll be waiting a long time still.

None of them stay long. Izumi and her husband go back to Dublith, because they have a shop to run. The Tringhams leave before them to go back to wherever they live, with barely a glance behind them. Military personnel pop in from time to time, to visit, to leave notes and what few reports aren’t classified. They talk with Alphonse, though it’s clear he doesn’t remember them, and even as they take it in stride she can see how much that hurts. It hurts him too, because often his smile doesn’t reach his eyes. Wrath only sticks around long enough to receive automail before he bolts— wild, snarling like an animal, so wounded. As if they all don’t have wounds too.

Her child begins to grow as the months pass, learning to walk and talk and get into all sorts of trouble. He picks up words with stunning speed and manages to bash his head on every piece of furniture in the house. He charms everyone with his innocence, having no idea of the horrors that surround his birth. She focuses on him. Not on monsters, not on being used, not on everything they’ve lost. It’s hard. Some days are harder than others. Some days it’s all too much and darkness encloses her heart and her head in an icy grip that she can’t shake loose.

It’s one of these bad days when she breaks a glass while washing dishes. It’s so stupid, it’s just a cup, and yet it’s the trigger for everything that’s been going rancid just beneath the surface of her being. Rose tries to keep it together. She tries to hard to carry on like she has, to stand tall and strong just like a boy with golden hair and firey eyes had once told her to. But it's just so _hard_ , and she can't stop the first shaking sob that claws it's way from her throat.

Winry must have heard the shattering of the glass, and comes and finds her as she is-- broken, trembling, and a little pathetic. She asks Rose if she's okay even though she clearly isn’t. She isn't able to force her voice into words, even though there are so many she wants to scream and shout and carve deep into the fabric of this country so no one ever forgets. Tears take her vision as Winry takes her bleeding hands without hesitation, cradling them close, finding a clean washcloth to press to her fingers. Then she has her arms around Rose's shoulders to bring her close to warmth and humanity-- and that's when something in her crumbles.

She's been limping along since that day in the barracks, crawling since she realized she was with child, suffering since the snake with a pretty face and prettier words had come along and picked her out of the dirt. There's no one here that understands what that was like. There will never be anyone who truly will. Winry doesn't tell her it's going to be alright, doesn't shower her with false promises or put her on a pedestal she never asked for. She just let's her cry like a child and doesn't ask for anything in return.

* * *

 

She hardly realizes it's winter already until the first snow tries to sputter and the air has gone cool. She's cold, she's always cold, because she's used to far more milder temperatures in Liore when this season hits. Of course the desert can be cold too-- desolate, unforgiving, with ice freezing over well buckets and clinging to outdoor pipes. But when the sun rose again it always burned off the frost. This place is _cold_. She bundles up Mateo despite his squeaks of protest before she'll allow him out to tumble in the dusting of white with Alphonse. Then she puts on another sweater as Winry laughs at her.

Winry also brings a quilt and two cups of hot chocolate, and then curls up with her by the window.

There are still many days that are bleak and grey. So many of them that she doesn't dare count them all, lest it pulls her back into the black pit where she lost her voice before. Sometimes it's hard to remember where she is, or that it's not all just a dream. The nightmares are better now but she knows they'll never leave. They’ll always be haunting shadows, waiting for a moment to steal what peace she’s gathered for herself.

It helps to have this little piece of light to hang on to. To wear borrowed sweaters that are a little big on her, because Winry is sculpted like some goddess of machines and the magic of science. To watch Alphonse coax flowers from the dead earth with alchemy and to see Mateo squeal in delight at the show. To feel a heartbeat so close to hers and know that she’s _alive_. Even as the days turn and darken, sun dipping lower and lower, she knows for certainty that it won’t last. Seasons change and so do they.

It’s alright for things to be cyclical. For things to rise and fall.

She’s going to be alright.


End file.
